What MAtters

​What Matters
I hark back to it, but I felt I learned heaps when in charge of the table tennis club.
One of the things that was really important to me, and has remained so, is finding out stuff for myself when it mattered to the life of the club.   People would tell me things, and even when they were right, I had to find it out for myself.  Something Merril said reinforced it big time.  Suppose someone was injured badly in our club.  I needed to know that what I was providing was correct, not just in my eyes, but in the eyes of law.  If I came before a judge, they would be likely to side with the person beaten up and injured who was in front of them, rather than the person representing the club.  It was only if I was sure of the ground I stood on, would I have a chance.  At that point it was no good me saying “so and so” told me differently.  I had to know it was right for myself to stand any chance.
It did not matter how well meaning the person was, or if they held to it really strongly.  That would not be enough for me.  I had to know it for myself, so when I spoke it was based on the relevant authority.
It seems to me to be a similar thing when it comes to those I read about and know.  I need to be standing on facts.  I read of lives and the things people say and do.  I really like a lot of it.  I think, “I will make that mine,” or “that seems to be worth standing on.”  Yet knowing about someone is never the same as knowing someone.
It would be a sad state of affairs if my relationship with Merril was based only on what I had heard and read about her.  I might like what I hear, and do an in-depth study of her.  I could base my thesis on her.  “The Life and Times of Merril Kuskie, and how what she has said and done has changed some people of the better.”  I may get top marks.    But the best anyone could say is “”it is like you know her.”  Knowing her in person makes all the difference.  It would be only then I could say with confidence “everything you have heard is true!”
Not all is as it sounds.  Some people sound really impressive.  They say all the right things (especially those that blow their own trumpet).  They appear successful.  Yet knowing them tells a very different story.  They may be truly successful, but I do not want to be like them.
Most of the information I hold to is good stuff, and to me worth knowing.  But for me opinion is not enough.  I need to know for sure, and have done what is necessary, for the judge to side with the club.